Investigation Of Ex-Chief Of the C.I.A. Is Broadened

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: September 17, 2000

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16—
John M. Deutch, who is under investigation by the Justice Department for admitted computer security violations when he was the director of central intelligence, may have committed the same kind of security breaches years earlier when he was a senior official at the Pentagon, according to government investigators and several confidential Defense Department documents.

In addition, the documents suggest a behind-the-scenes debate in the Defense Department over whether Mr. Deutch should have been stripped of a security clearance that allowed him to continue to work on defense-related issues for government contractors since leaving office at the end of President Clinton's first term. Mr. Deutch voluntarily relinquished the clearance in February.

The documents, provided to The New York Times by government investigators, said that during his tenure as an undersecretary of defense and then in the Pentagon's No. 2 post as deputy secretary of defense in the early years of the Clinton administration, Mr. Deutch ''routinely entered data on government-owned computers at his office and home not designated to process classified information.''

The report added that, ''Dr. Deutch maintained a daily journal containing classified information that was almost 1,000 pages in length, on computer memory cards, that he reportedly transported in his shirt pocket.''

The documents say that like the security breaches for which he was stripped of his security clearance by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon information he downloaded at home was on computers that he and his family also used for routine Internet use. As a result, one of the Defense Department documents says, ''Dr. Deutch's practice of using computers in this manner was extremely risky in that a computer 'hacker' could have gained online access to Dr. Deutch's computer and the information stored in temporary files on the hard drive, including the journal.''

Pentagon documents also show that while he served as the deputy secretary in 1994 and 1995, he declined department requests that ''he allow security systems to be installed in his residence'' in Bethesda, Md.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said today that, ''It appears that Mr. Deutch not only left his fingerprints on downloaded classified information at the C.I.A. but he also left his droppings at the Defense Department. This is a troubling pattern and begs a thorough investigation.''

A special prosecutor at the Justice Department has told associates that he will probably recommend that Mr. Deutch be prosecuted for security violations, law enforcement officials said. The prosecutor, Paul E. Coffey, was called out of retirement by Attorney General Janet Reno to examine the seriousness of the security violations at the C.I.A. But he has since expanded the scope of the inquiry into Mr. Deutch's behavior at the Defense Department. The broadening of the investigation into the Deutch tenure at the Pentagon was first reported in Saturday's editions of The Washington Post.

Mr. Deutch was director of central intelligence from May 1995 until he resigned in December 1996. As he was leaving, a C.I.A. computer security official found that Mr. Deutch had stored information at his home, including details of covert operations.

Pentagon documents show that after the initial investigation of his actions became public, some defense officials argued over whether Mr. Deutch was being given special treatment, especially over the decision to allow him to retain what officials have called ''an industrial clearance.''

An e-mail from Christopher Mellon, a senior official in the defense secretary's office, dated Feb. 3, 2000, to the head of Pentagon security, Richard Williams, asks that Mr. Williams check with other officials. It then goes on to say, ''They will confirm that I was the most ardent advocate for treating Deutch like anyone else and was told to stand down by the front office.''

An e-mail from Mr. Williams to a senior official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, dated Feb. 7, says that he had recommended beginning the procedure to revoke Mr. Deutch's clearance, but that ''this process was stopped above my level.''

The report shows that investigators diligently tracked down the seven computers they had concluded Mr. Deutch used while at the Pentagon. Some of the computers were found at Florida A & M University, a Mennonite school in Pennsylvania and at a computer store in Crofton, Md.